The Sense of Duty
In our religion, times, days, remembrances and actions are fixed for prayer, fasting and other acts of worship. For example, prayer has to be performed five times a day with fixed rakats. In a year, we have to observe fasts in one month of Ramadan and so on. The question is why these worships are not left to the discretion of the individual and why a certain number and days are fixed?
Undoubtedly, there are countless wisdoms about this, but one basic wisdom is that worship is also a means of training the human soul. If the human self is not accustomed to any rules and regulations, it becomes unrestrained. He wants to act according to his desires and feelings, ignoring every requirement of reason and nature and every aspect of welfare of individual and society. If this behavior is allowed, the society will be disrupted.
These are acts of worship that make a person accustomed to work against the self-desire and train him to lead life according to rules and laws. For example, Fajr prayer instills the habit of getting up early in the morning. By sacrificing sweet sleep at dawn, a person makes the morning breeze a part of his body and soul, which cannot be found anywhere else. Punctuality in other prayers and determination of rak’ahs make a person accustomed to make his will power strong enough to leave all the busyness, interest and ease of life and become a force to fulfill his responsibilities.
This is the sense of duty that once born in a person, enables him to fulfill every moral responsibility that arises regarding his self, family and society in a good way. If the awareness of this is common in a society, the flowers of goodness and blessings will bloom there.